


The Winter Soldier: A Zee-ztory

by astudyinpanda



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Sunless Sea
Genre: Angst, Crossover, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-16
Updated: 2015-06-16
Packaged: 2018-04-04 18:08:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4147707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astudyinpanda/pseuds/astudyinpanda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The prisoner you liberated from the Sea of Lillies is strangely familiar...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Winter Soldier: A Zee-ztory

The prisoner shakes in a corner of his shadowed cell, rattling the chains about his wrists as you approach. His left arm, which hangs stiff at his side, is the only part not in motion. When his face jerks up toward yours, his blue eyes are wet with tears. "Take me with you, Captain." Even his voice shakes. "I was a sergeant. In the 107th. Captured in the Battle of Unending Winter. I'll get you where you need to go. Take me with you. Please."

You already have a first officer. The Black Widow is from the Iron Republic, which means she misses nothing and doesn't cause a fuss. But this wreck of a man is officer material, and will drain no more of the ship's resources than the Comatose Ferret who, though no longer ship's mascot, you cannot bear to part with. Besides, you were a soldier yourself, once. No one was born a zee captain. You make the arrangements. When the Winter Soldier steps into the glow of your ship's lamps, his trembling stills. His left arm glints metallic, a segmented prosthesis designed for more than fashion.

After a few days at zee put the Sea of Lillies behind you, the Winter Soldier proves himself not a piece of human flotsam but a competent crewman. Alarmingly competent, at the guns. The metal arm doesn't hinder him at all. Your gunnery officer is even more alarming, so you set the man off at the next port and offer the position to the Winter Soldier. He stares at you a long time before he nods acceptance. Dark hair falls into his eyes. You'll need to find some cord for that.

Your new gunnery officer is damnably familiar. In quiet moments you catch him watching you from the deck (he never goes below, even in the most inclement weather). You invite him to dinner in your cabin, where he eats quietly but well. In each others' presence you develop a similar accent, strange to the ears and indicative of no port you've visited. Neither of you can recall your place of birth. It has never seemed important until now. The Winter Soldier is also missing years of personal history. Pressing him for what details he does remember results in silence, and a tremor in his remaining hand.

Though there's rarely profit in news from the Cumaean Canal, you always visit when you find yourself nearby. The idea of a sun-lit Surface fascinates, though you can't imagine there's anything more valuable above than below. When you next dock there, the Winter Soldier gazes transfixed at the staging area. "I came through," he says. A certainty forms in your mind: the Winter Soldier is a Surfacer, and so, once, were you.

Provisioned and armed with information and dark glasses, you venture up the Canal at your next opportunity. The sunlight dazzles, but warms. The Port of New York is loud and packed with ships vast enough to carry ninety of yours. Dock workers speak with the strange accent you and the Winter Soldier share. In unspoken agreement, you venture into the city together. You navigate its crowded streets with eerie precision, reaching at last a tenement building in the borough of Brooklyn.

"It began here," the Winter Soldier murmurs. "This is not where it ends."

In a flash of sunlight off metal he attacks, throwing blow after heavy blow with his unexpectedly agile left arm. The lid of a refuse bin provides a temporary shield, but two solid punches warp it irreparably. The Winter Soldier kicks you into a brick wall and stalks after you. The sad, quiet gunnery officer is gone, but his knife remains.

A name forms on your tongue. When you speak it, it sounds both foreign and like a childhood home. It stops the Soldier mid-step, knife raised, with a look of deep confusion and deeper hope. You take the opportunity to knock him senseless.

Aboard your ship and chained more tightly than the day you met him, the Winter Soldier awakens with apologies and despair. "I KNEW you." In his tone lies a long and lonely memory with few other souls truly known.

_A squabble among urchins in a sunlit street. Your fists and nose are bloody, your punches feeble. A just fire of fury burns in your heart, but your lungs refuse to fuel it. As your young enemies close in, a shout and a violent assault on their flank: a dark haired, blue-eyed boy. You are saved._

"I knew you too."

You free the Winter Soldier and bid your watchful first officer to put away her Widow's Bites. Whatever began on the Surface, it would end with the three of you together again, on the Unterzee below.

**Author's Note:**

> If you have no idea what any of this was about, but like it, you should probably play [Sunless Sea](http://www.failbettergames.com/sunless/) and watch [Captain America: The Winter Soldier](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1843866/). Not simultaneously.


End file.
